The Ashes 2013: Ashton Agar demonstrates the joys of Test cricket

A cry of anguish spread round the office as Australia’s number 11 Ashton Agar holed out just two runs away from an extraordinary debut Test century.

Picked ostensibly for his bowling – a left-arm spinner, perhaps just to target Kevin Pietersen – Agar’s performance and position at the end of the innings appears to demonstrate Australia know as little about this cricketer as everyone else.

He looked by far the most comfortable Australian batsman in the team – though the sprightly Steve Smith showed some typical pluck. Agar played the ball around the ground, hitting beautifully timed sixes and fours off all of England’s premium bowlers, widely lauded as the best attack in world cricket. After a pitifully abject performance by Australia’s top order – themselves already following a hapless England display – Agar showed the Trent Bridge pitch was playable and enjoyed himself. It appeared as though the teenage Agar – wearing a helmet that was comically several sizes too large – was knocking deliveries around for fun with his mates in the sunshine at the local recreation ground rather than making his first appearance at one of cricket’s oldest stages. At the other end the gritty Phil Hughes nurdled on, looking as ugly a player as he ever does.

The Ashes is just two days in and already the cricket has shown why the five-day game is the supreme form of the sport

And while England fans began grinding their teeth that this upstart was ruining England’s chance to firmly grasp the first Test match in this Ashes series, they quickly joined their Australian counterparts and started rooting for this young player. Never mind that Alastair Cook was demonstrating his still naïve captaincy and some of the bowling was atrocious. This was something remarkable. Australia eventually passed England’s meagre total, the final pair built an astonishing partnership to take a decent lead. All everyone wanted was for Agar to get those final two runs to score a century.

Cheers abounded when the ball left his bat, only for fielders to get in the way. And then he hoisted Broad in the air and Swann was there to take the catch. Oh the pity! ‘Poor fellow’ echoed observers. Swann was noticeably one of England’s players who ran to congratulate Agar as he took the standing ovation as he departed. In this month’s The Cricketer Michael Henderson writes that the ‘true cricket lover is the person who can enjoy a drawn match… as much as a game where the result favours one side or the other’. And joyfully, Agar prevented this match from becoming a dully one-sided affair.

The Ashes is just two days in and already the cricket has shown why the five-day game is the supreme form of the sport, with advantages changing from side to side. Yes, there’s been some disappointing batting but for all its forced razzmatazz, 20/20 or the one day game doesn’t come close. Agar’s heroics could only have happened in Test cricket.